Me: "I don't understand why it is so difficult to understand that if you sign a contract, you have to hold up your end of it. But here I have paid you on schedule for work that turns out to be completely substandard. And now, mid-contract, you are claiming that you need more money for slipshod work because the minimum wage went up. This boggles the mind. First, it isn't really my business or my problem that you pay people crap and can't keep employees for more than a few weeks. Second, I want to introduce you to a term which may be new to you: 'penalty clause', a term which I am now invoking. My part of this conversation is over, and you will continue it with Horrible David, our lawyer. He is a nasty man who doesn't even understand the term 'reasonable'. So take the interval between conversations to mull over all the bad business decisions that have led you to this point. Good day, sir."

Billy: "Chris, you know how some people have 'resting bitch face'? Well, the boss has 'resting evil glee face', but you gotta understand that he's cheerfully evil all the way down to his bones and if you don't start moving your ass, he'll move it for you."

The pools at the facility I run are 2,500,000 gallon standard Olympic size pools. So, at 4 ppm chlorine, that's 8.5 gallons of chlorine, at ten pounds per gallon. Now, rich old people get in the pool. The amount of piss a horrible old rich person can contain is 0.13 gallons. Mixing that much urine with chlorinated water would produce .01 pounds of chloramine gas. So when 8500 people piss in the pool, the free chlorine crashes, because it's all been turned to chloramine, which doesn't show up on a free chlorine test, but the chlorides are still in the water, only nastier and more prone to off-gas in sunlight.

The water crashes twice a year. Which means 47 of the old bastards are pissing in the pool EVERY DAY, and then complaining that the water is making their eyes burn.

So that damned underwater spring found it's way to the surface again, right in the middle of an intersection. It's also come up at an angle, so the water is welling up through the blacktop and running uphill for a short distance, and then down the storm drain.

*watching water run uphill*

Nick: "What the hell?"

Billy: "Get used to it. You work for Dok now, and that's how things are. Remind me to tell you about the haunted water tank."

So that damned underwater spring found it's way to the surface again, right in the middle of an intersection. It's also come up at an angle, so the water is welling up through the blacktop and running uphill for a short distance, and then down the storm drain.

*watching water run uphill*

Nick: "What the hell?"

Billy: "Get used to it. You work for Dok now, and that's how things are. Remind me to tell you about the haunted water tank."

So that damned underwater spring found it's way to the surface again, right in the middle of an intersection. It's also come up at an angle, so the water is welling up through the blacktop and running uphill for a short distance, and then down the storm drain.

*watching water run uphill*

Nick: "What the hell?"

Billy: "Get used to it. You work for Dok now, and that's how things are. Remind me to tell you about the haunted water tank."

#1 Me: "Yes, I AM dancing in my office. You may have noticed that I have an excessive amount of energy, which unkind people might even describe as 'manic'. I can shed that energy dancing to 'Everybody Talks', or I can use it to find things for you to do."

#2 Billy: "So we're going to build an entire SCADA system for the swimming pools?"Me: "Also the HVAC units."Billy: "Isn't that going just a little overboard?"Me: *looks at Billy in Boss*Nick: "Seriously, it's overkill."Me: "Then what am I gonna do with the 500 Bluetooth transmitters that we found in the storage room?"Nick: "We could just ignore them. They probably belong to the IT guy or something."Me: *looks at Nick in More Boss*Billy: "Okay, whatever. I'm just saying that..."Me: "Despite our reduced circumstances, there is SCIENCE around here somewhere. I can smell it."Billy: "Oh, shit, here we go."Nick: "Wait. What?"Me: "Hush. There's work to be done."

#3 Boss: "You're just going to hand the water numbers over to the board?"Me: "Well, they have a right to know. I'm just inflicting the truth."Boss: "They're gonna shit."Me: "Then I guess we'll just have to do better."Boss: "No, seriously, they're going to shit."Me: "This is how we do it. Drag everything out in daylight, see what wiggles. Besides, WE didn't pee in the pool. Unless there's something you want to tell me."Boss: *looks at me in Boss*Me: "Okay, fine. I won't EXPLAIN it, I'll just publish it."